Optician banned from the roads after drink-driving only few months after passing test

A young optician has been banned from the road after being caught more than four times the legal drink-drive limit.

Jonathan Hay appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday and admitted driving with 92 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath on January 20 this year.

The legal limit is 22mcg.

The court heard Hay, of Burnside Gardens, had been on a night out celebrating his new job and was supposed to go back to his girlfriends’ flat to stay the night.

However, when he arrived there, he found she wasn’t in and he did not have a set of keys.

Solicitor advocate, Gail Goodfellow, said her client had previously been the victim of a “nasty” unprovoked attack in the city centre and now suffers from severe anxiety when he is left alone.

She added he had consequently made the “foolish” decision to try to drive home.

The court heard the 28-year-old optician had only passed his test a few months prior to the offence.

Sheriff Christine McCrossan fined Hay £600 and banned him from the road for a year.